The Man Who Could Not Be Emperor

GIOVANNI PAPINI

Being the True Story of the Father of All Those Who Prefer the World at Second-Hand

DEAR READER, whoever you are—

I wish I could meet you face to face and look into your eyes and clasp your hand and say to you: "Do you imagine that you are really living—living profoundly, wholly, magnificently? Does life seem as beautiful and delectable as you dreamed it would be in the ardent, lost days of your youth?"

Dear Reader, I should like to ask: "Do you feel within you, in your very vitals, in your very blood, something that leaps and boils, a flaming river of feeling? Do you ever feel—after a pleasure, a sunset, a beautiful poem—that you are the first man, the discoverer of life, the discoverer of the world itself? And does life seem small and the world infinitesimal? Do you share the craving of Alexander for the furthermost skies?"

I would like to ask you these questions, cowardly reader—lazy wretch who reads these words instead of getting your knowledge from life itself. Aren't you ashamed?

A chair supports your body; your eyes are fixed on a magazine, following the skipping black and white of a printed page—your good-for-nothing little soul smiles or frowns, sneers, understands or fails to understand, according to the sequence of letters and words! And you fancy you are living! You, reader of books!

You look with disdain on the "vulgar mass" that knows nothing of up-to-date literature and is not nourished upon fashionable psychology. You say to yourself:

"I am an intellectual; a thinker, an exquisite, an aristocrat, a superior being, a member of the elite. The world was made for me and revolves about me. Exalted thoughts and obscure words are the in. signia of my rank—I am the ruler of time, of spirit and of eternity."

Do you say these things to yourself, cowardly reader? I hope so! Because I am speaking to such as you. I despise you. I despise you for a terrible, an odious, a tragic reason; I am like you, dear reader—perhaps I am you!

I accept your part bravely, sad, as being you, who read my stuff, must necessarily be. I, at least, can answer my own questions frankly and fearlessly. So I ask again: "Are you living?"

ANSWER: No! I am not living wholly, profoundly, magnificently. Like all of you, I am a coward, a weakling, a nonentity. Here in my study I have a world of my own—cardboard men, paper women, mountains of cigarette smoke. Wonderful! Delightful! I stay in my study. I read. I think. I dream. I build air castles. This is my life. I pray every day to my household gods. I despise the people passing and repassing in the street below my window, because they haven't a little artificial world of their own.

I am in my kingdom when I close my study door. To-day I am d'Artagnan. To-morrow Zeus, thundering in the heavens. I am creator and destroyer. I rule the sea. I command the earth. I am faun and centaur, priest and philosopher. Beautiful women come at my command. Like Faust, I can reclaim my youth. I hol,d concourse with devils and satyrs, scientists and prophets.

I am a poor, deluded child playing with dolls. And I say, to console myself: "It is cold out of doors, and the streets are full of wolves. . . ."

I am—have you guessed?—a cerebralist. Curious creatures—cerebralist?—worth knowing.

I'll tell you the story of the father of us all. It will both amuse and instruct you. And then perhaps you will better understand why I despise both you and myself, who so strangely resembles you.

This is a story—that I am about to tell you—concerning a man who didn't rightly understand himself, who didn't rightly understand the world, who didn't even understand the woyld in which he was living. He thought that the world was something outside of himself—something that he could grapple with—subdue —and conquer. He was, you see, as ignorant of things as you are—as abysmally unaware of what Truth is, of what the world is. But, as he had many advantages of the sort that you have undoubtedly encountered yourself, I shall tell you what he sought, and what he found.

ONCE upon a time a man put on his shoes and stockings, wrapped himself in his cloak, took his hat and went out to conquer the world. He was full of great thoughts. His heart was larger than the earth itself. And he said:

"I will conquer so vast a realm that men will grow gray carrying messages from one of my cities to another—I will conquer treasure enough to fill a lake—I will love many pale women—I will kill all my enemies. To-day I am poor and obscure; I have only a cloak to cover me; but my dreams are great and I will be master of all that is."

This man arrived at a great city and announced that he wished to be king. Every one laughed at him. He thought: "I'll show them!" And went to another city, where the same thing happened.

So he travelled all over the world, and everywhere he was laughed at or dismissed with a penny and a curse.

At last he returned to his own home. His shoes were worn out, his cloak was threadbare, his hair was white as snow. But his house had not changed. He went in and said: "I have no followers. I have won no battles. I own no treasure. I am not, it appears, master of the world." And he was very sad.

But one morning—it was in May and the fields were yellow with buttercups—he became strangely joyous and said: "At last I understand my lot. I was blind, to go forth to conquer the earth. What I _ thought was real is only an illusion. The real world exists in me, in my thoughts, in my imagination, in my dreams—I can conquer it when and how I will!"

He lighted his lamp and set himself to find the true, perfect, profound, magnificent world.

This man was the father of all poets, metaphysicians and dreamers. He founded the kingdom of those who know nothing of life at first-hand, blissful manufacturers of little second-hand worlds made of paper and ink.

And you and I—dear reader—and all the other dear readers, are lineal descendants of the man who found that he could not be Emperor.

I am only sorry that I was not able to tell you this story before you had begun your unnecessary travels.